


give myself away in small, bloody strips

by 524



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 16:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4794011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/524/pseuds/524
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>to anyone who asks,<br/>and some who don't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	give myself away in small, bloody strips

**Author's Note:**

> just a little something. i wanted to write about my NCR courier interacting with joshy boy. they don't get along.

When the courier arrives in Zion, Joshua has just finished changing his bandages 10 minutes prior. He changes them twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. Sometimes, if he's having a bad day, he changes them at lunchtime, too. Joshua can feel the seeping, cloying sensation of liquid oozing from his ruined skin already. The bandages feel damp, sticking to his flesh and pulling as he moves. This might be a bad day.

The courier introduces himself as Moss. A strange name for a strange man, or a boy really, as far as Joshua can tell. Moss is armed to the teeth and stands with his arms folded across his chest, closed off and guarded, but there's the glint of child-like stubbornness in his eyes that gives him away as no more than 20. Joshua is surprised by his arrival, but not threatened. No matter how many guns this courier has, Joshua's years of experience far outweigh them. As do the burdens of those years. And indeed, there's something in Moss - the way his eyes flicker around and don't miss a thing, perhaps - that reminds Joshua of Edward when they first met. He keeps this thought to himself, though. Moss is NCR born and bred, clear from the way his chest puffs out proudly when he speaks of them, and comparing him to Caesar, even in his youth, wouldn't go down well.

The distrust in Moss' face is obvious, and Joshua wonders if it is mirrored in his own eyes. Moss makes some throwaway comment about shaking Daniel for information, his voice full of the arrogance of youth and all at once Joshua feels himself slip back into the person he used to be. The boy's face shows a flash of fear - he's heard the stories. Legend of some charred spectre have preceded Joshua. Occasionally the Legate in him rears his head no matter how many years it’s been, but knocking Moss down a peg feels good. Let the boy fear. Let him know that Joshua Graham is still just as deadly in bandages as he was in Legion armour.

Moss makes every excuse to not talk to Joshua, something he’s secretly grateful of. However, one afternoon as Joshua is beginning to clean his collection of .45s he hears an awkward cough from the entrance to Angel Cave. Moss stands there, fingers fiddling with his ridiculously-dyed pink hair, waiting for an invitation further into the cave.

"Chalk asked me to come talk to you. If it's a bad time..." Moss nods his head towards the half-disassembled gun in Joshua’s hands.

"This is about his obsession with 'civilisation'." Joshua doesn't bother to hide the disdain in his voice, reassembling the gun with practiced ease. Moss nods, stepping forward so that he's in the cave fully. "You can imagine how I feel about that, I'm sure."

Moss snorts. "Chalk can go if he wants, though. He should explore, form his own opinion." His opinion is predictable, and predictably childish. Joshua fights the urge to roll his eyes. "He'd rather go with your blessing, 's the thing."

"My blessing." Joshua repeats the words flatly.

In his mind’s eye, he sees Follows-Chalk going with this courier to Nevada. He sees him wide-eyed and awed by the lights and glamour of New Vegas. He sees Follows-Chalk being ambushed, captured, crucified by a team of Legion explorers. The thought leaves the taste of fear in Joshua's throat, sour and choking. His grip tightens on the gun, burned nerve endings screaming at him. "No. He doesn't understand the dangers, and neither do you."

"You don't _own_ him." Moss' lips curl up into a smirk - or a snarl. It's a direct strike at Joshua's past and he can’t help but flinch. Before he can tell Moss to leave, he’s already gone.

The afternoon light floods in from the entrance of the cave. Joshua grits his teeth and begins unwinding the bandages from his left hand.


End file.
